Welcome to the Tombs (Survive)
"Welcome to the Tombs" is the fifteenth episode of the third Season and thirty-third overall in Polimis' The Walking Dead: Survive. It premiered on December 30, 2018 at 8:00 p.m. on FOX and AMC. Plot Rick tells Glenn about The Governor's offer. Daryl and Dale try to dissuade Rick from giving up Michonne, but Rick insists it's their best shot at saving lives. "It just ain't us, man," says Glenn. Rick then enlists Merle's help. Merle warns that The Governor won't kill Michonne; just torture her. "You're cold as ice, Officer Friendly," Merle says, advising Rick to use wire to bind her so she'll be unable to chew through it. Daryl, Glenn, Michonne, and Beth work together to lay spike strips at the prison gate and prepare for the impending attack. Walkers are killed at the fence. After they drive back up to the cell block, Michonne tells Rick of the plan, which she has conceived. "We don't have to win, we just have to make their getting at us more trouble than it's worth". In the cell block, Carol asks Merle if he's on their team. "It's time to pick a damn side," she says while putting Judith in her playpen. Merle responds by saying he's only "here" for his brother, to which Carol responds "Yeah, well, he's with us....." Daryl tells Glenn that Merle will find a way to make up for his cruelty at Woodbury, but asks for some forgiveness. Glenn points out that Merle was responsible for The Governor's assault on Maggie, and he can't forgive him for hurting the woman he loves, indirectly or not. Daryl then finds Merle in the generator room, who's there with the pretense of finding hidden drugs. Merle reflects on how the group despises him, but points out that Rick is no better for agreeing to The Governor's deal. "Maybe these people need somebody like me around to do their dirty work," Merle says. "I just want my brother back," Daryl replies. After Daryl leaves, we see that Merle takes the telephone and adds it to a stash of weapons that he's building. While Hershel, Maggie, and Beth pray inside, Rick finds a cable outside to bind Michonne. Lori appears on the catwalk. He throws the cable away and leaves. Rick enters the cell block where they are praying, and pulls Hershel aside. He declares that the deal is off. Meanwhile, Merle takes Michonne to the tombs under the pretense of clearing out walkers. He then knocks her unconscious with the telephone and puts a sack over her head. He then drags her to the generator room and binds her wrists with wire. A while later, Merle walks Michonne down an abandoned road and explains The Governor's proposition. He says Rick would have "blinked" and not gone through with it. "But not you," she says. Rick and Daryl search for Merle and Michonne, concluding that Merle abducted her. Daryl leaves to track them down. Meanwhile, Merle tells Michonne that this is his chance to save Daryl and the others. Michonne notes that Merle has a conscience, but Merle disagrees: "I've killed 16 men since all this went down," he says. Back at the prison, Glenn asks Hershel for Maggie's hand in marriage. Hershel gives his blessing. At an abandoned motel, Merle tethers Michonne to a post while he hotwires a car. He accidentally triggers the alarm, attracting walkers. While he is trying to turn it off, a walker attacks him. He was almost bitten, but managed to kill the walker. Merle and Michonne jump in the car, and drive off. In the car, Michonne tells Merle that the prison group would have eventually welcomed him, but he chose to be an outsider. He calls her an outsider, too. "Maybe," she says, "but once The Governor's done with me, at least I won't have to live with myself." Michonne wonders why Merle wants to help The Governor when he's the one who turned Merle into a killer. She asks whether he had killed any of the 16 men ".. before Woodbury? Before you met him?" Merle's lack of an answer confirms that they were all at The Governor's behest. "You know we can go back," she says. Merle stops the car, cuts her bindings and sets her free. "I got something I gotta do," he says before he drives off alone. Daryl later runs into her on her way back to the prison, who tells him Merle let her go. He tells her not to send help and continues on after Merle. Stopped in a parking lot, Merle drinks a bottle of whiskey as walkers mob the vehicle. He blasts loud hard-rock on the stereo and slowly drives down the road, letting walkers gather in his wake. He arrives at The Governor's meeting spot and rolls out of the moving car with a rifle in hand before stealthily taking shelter in a nearby building. The Governor and his men investigate the source of the blaring music. They soon find it is coming from the car, which has now managed to roll into the middle of the feed store's courtyard; dozens of walkers clinging around it and lurking towards it from behind. They begin shooting at the oncoming threat, becoming confused and disorderly as they do so, and the numbers of undead begin to advance on their positions. Amid the gun blasts, Merle finds a decent sniper's position in the shadows and quickly and unpredictably opens fire on The Governor's men while they are forced to waste their valuable ammunition and attention on the advancing hordes, leaving them downed and helpless against the approaching walkers. After losing at least seven of his men, including the Mean Guard, who is excruciatingly devoured by walkers, The Governor steps outside, gun in hand, to angrily deal with the infestation himself. The remaining gunners gradually begin to catch on to Merle's plan, and Bruce orders them to check over by the entrance to the building Merle is shooting from. A walker attacks Merle from behind, who he stabs and tackles to the ground, and they tumble outside where he's discovered. Bruce and the surviving Woodbury soldiers give Merle a brutal beating until he can't fight anymore. Taking advantage of the situation, The Governor runs up and carries him back into the building, ordering his men to "leave him to me." The Governor viciously beats and cripples Merle, kicking him multiple times, breaking his right arm, snapping his back against a table, biting off his fingers, head butting him, and briefly choking him. "I'm gonna kill Daryl and you're going to see him get torn apart." says The Governor and begins to walk away. The Governor then changes his mind, raises his gun and shoots him off-screen just as the camera cuts to black. At the prison, Glenn finds Maggie alone and places an engagement ring in her hand that he had managed to take from a walker. She smiles, accepts the token of affection, and they kiss, now a married couple. Rick gathers the group and discloses The Governor's offer. "I couldn't sacrifice one of us for the greater good because we are the greater good," he says. "I'm not your Governor. We choose to go. We choose to stay. We stick together." He concedes that he doesn't want to be the only person making decisions for the group anymore. From the guard tower, Rick watches Michonne making her way back to the prison, smiling to see that Merle had done what he had hoped for by himself. At the feed store, Daryl scouts the area and kills a few spare walkers before coming across one with a bullet wound in its chest, Merle. Daryl breaks down in tears at the sight of his ruined brother. When Merle tries to attack, Daryl tearfully stabs him in the head multiple times out of rage before falling to the ground, sobbing at the loss of the only family member he had left. The episode ends with him staring in misery at the now-finished corpse of his brother. Deaths *Merle Dixon (Alive and Zombified) *8 Unnamed Woodbury Soldiers Credits Co-Stars *Michelle Ang as Charlie Rhee Uncredited *Unknown as Andre Anthony *Adelaide and Eliza Cornwell as Judith Grimes Trivia *Last appearance of Merle Dixon. **Merle is the second main character to die.